Scots families hit by £180 ‘mummy tax’

Mothers should be able to take the time they need with their babies, says Labour. Picture: TSPL

SCOTT MACNAB

THOUSANDS of Scottish families will be hit by the planned “mummy tax” being introduced by the coalition government, which will see up to £180 cut from maternity pay in the years ahead.

It is feared that new mothers will be forced to return to work earlier than planned and lose precious bonding time with their babies. Campaigners are warning that working families will be hit as hard by the spending cuts as those on the dole.

About 18,000 Scottish women will be affected by the changes under the controversial proposals, according to figures obtained from the House of Commons by the Labour party.

In the coming year, women will be £53 a year worse over the 33-week period of the standard rate of statutory maternity pay. This rises to £180 by 2015-16. And it comes on top of effective cuts in child benefit levels which will see the payment reduced for families where one parent earns more than £50,000 – and cut completely when they earn more than £60,000.

Peter Kelly, director of Scottish lobby group, the Poverty Alliance, says the figures undermine coalition rhetoric about clamping down on “skivers” and show that the cuts are now affecting everyone.

“A lot of the changes that are taking place through the bene-fits cap or through the wider programme of welfare reforms are hitting people are in work – in many cases to a greater extent than those who are out of work,” he said.

“Those changes in benefits, the cap on child benefit – they’re all going to hit working parents quite hard. It’s one of the areas in the cuts where long-term savings are going to be made, but at the expense of some of the poorest families.

“If we’re looking at mothers who are working part-time and making decisions about starting a family, this is putting more pressure on them either to return to work before they want to, or it’s pushing them into tougher times.”

The cutbacks are part of the coalition government’s efforts to balance Britain’s public finances, which currently carry a deficit of £108 billion more spent on public services than gets raised through taxes to fund them. The UK’s national debt smashed through the £1 trillion barrier earlier this year.

Labour says a rough estimate, agreed with the Commons library, of the 235,000 women forecast to receive maternity pay in 2013-14 in Britain includes about 18,000 in Scotland.

“Already, women have been hit particularly hard by this government, with maternity grants cut and baby bonds scrapped. Now, they plan another penalty for women with children at a time when people are finding it more and more difficult to make ends meet.

“New mums should be able to take the time they need with their babies after they leave hospital. With these cuts making time off work less affordable, many women will have to make a choice between bonding with their baby or returning to work earlier than planned.”

In his Autumn Statement, Chancellor George Osborne revealed plans to limit the annual increase in most benefits to just 1 per cent per year for the next three years.

This includes statutory maternity pay which is paid by employers when women take time off to have a baby.

At present, a mother is paid 90 per cent of her salary for the first six weeks of her maternity leave, followed by £135.45 per week for the following 33 weeks. This weekly amount has previously increased every April in line with the previous September’s consumer prices index.

This would have led to a 2.2 per cent rise, equal to around £3 a week. But under the new system, it will rise by only £1.35.

Eilidh Whiteford, the SNP’s work and pensions spokeswoman at Westminster, said the figures underline the impact that the UK government’s “welfare-cutting agenda” is already having on Scotland. “Every day we read more harrowing evidence of its effects, particularly on the most vulnerable,” she said.

“But this latest attack on working families goes totally against the Tories’ stated aim of making work pay, and leaves new mums out of pocket at the very time where they need financial support the most.

“This is just one more example of why it would be far better to be making all the decisions surrounding our welfare system here in Scotland, with independence.”

Many families rely on child benefit, which is usually paid to the mother, to balance weekly budgets.

About 100,000 Scottish families are set to be hit by the changes to this benefit which come in on 7 January. Under the current set-up, parents can claim £20.30 a week for an eldest or only child and £13.40 a week for each of their other children.

Mr Osborne announced an amended plan in this year’s Budget to steadily withdraw child benefit from families where one parent earns more than £50,000.

Until the coalition came to power, in May 2010, it was increased each year in line with the retail prices index. But the three-year freeze followed by two years of tiny rises has wiped out its spending power. Parts of the complicated child tax credit payments will also rise by only 1 per cent for three years from April 2013.

The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) says that last April benefits went up by 5.2 per cent, while wages saw little growth. A spokesman said yesterday: “In difficult economic times we’ve protected benefits for pensioners, carers and disabled people.

“We’ve struck the right balance between ensuring that we protect those who need it most, and responsibly managing the welfare budget that has been left to spiral out of control for years.”

Benefits for carers and disability benefits such as the Attendance Allowance, will continue to be up-rated in line with price inflation, the DWP says.

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.